Echoes
by Mitchy1
Summary: What was going through Kat's mind in "It Takes a Village" when her and Scotty went to check out that storage facility? One shot.


_This is a one shot written for Collider, whose prompt this was. She loved the scene in "It Takes a Village" where Scotty and Kat go to find the boy's body in the storage locker, and wanted to explore what was going through Kat's mind before that scene took place. I have not seen the episode for a long time so if the end of this fic doesn't jibe with what happened, well that's the way it is. Usual disclaimers, I don't own CC or the adorable characters, dammit._

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Stillman gave the order and no-one dawdled in getting out of the office and heading towards the various storage facilities. Kat eyed her notes with something akin to loathing. Somewhere in Philly, there were parents who'd been nursing hope: hope their kid was alive, hope that one day he or she would come home, hope that wherever they were, they were safe. And there was a real possibility that today she was going to find the body that would destroy that hope forever.

Breaking the bad news had become a not uncommon occurrence in her job but Kat could still remember the first time, when she had stood outside the door of Mr & Mrs Harrison's apartment to tell them their daughter wasn't coming home. That day was burned into her memory with a sharpness that could still cut.

She'd still been in uniform then, a rookie, still not quite believing she'd made it into the police department; dreams of being a detective were still unformed. She had more than enough to worry about, learning to patrol the streets she'd run around as a kid, looking at them with completely different eyes. Or, at least, trying to think like a cop and not like the people she now chased.

There'd been a car accident, she remembered, one car ploughing into another at an intersection, and the resulting fallout had seen both cars careen onto the sidewalk. Both drivers were killed and so was the innocent pedestrian they'd hit, 12 year old Sarah Harrison. She'd just gone to the store for sweets, hadn't done a thing to anyone, had been skipping home without a care in the world. Sarah was recognised at the scene by the store owner, who'd glumly told them where the Harrisons lived. Kat's partner, a usually jovial man, had looked especially grim as they pulled up outside the apartment block. "You ready to do this, kid?" he'd asked.

Gods, she'd been so cocky, Kat thought. They'd covered this in the Academy, the ways and means of breaking bad news, how to deal with delicate situations, how to handle hysterical witnesses; she'd always aced those classes, so what did she have to fear? She'd be calm, professional, sympathetic, do the job and move on.

She could only look back on her cocky, younger self with a mixture of amusement and disgust, and with a faint desire to kick her ass before she rang the doorbell that day. Of course it hadn't been as straightforward as her idiot self had believed.

"_Mrs Harrison?" _

"_Yes?"_

"_I'm Officer Miller, this is Officer Williamson, please may we come in?"_

"_What is it? What's wrong? Is it Kevin? My husband? Is it about my husband?"_

"_Uh, no, ma'am, if we could just…"_

"_Tell me what's wrong, something's wrong. OH MY GOD! IS IT SARAH ISN'T IT?"_

_Kat looked at her partner but he offered no help, he was letting her handle this alone._

"_Uh, ma'am, I'm very sorry, but your daughter was killed in a car accident this afternoon."_

"_Car..accident? She's twelve! How can she have been killed in a car accident? Are you stupid? You've got the wrong girl! I'm going to sue this City's ass off for this, how dare you come to my home and frighten me to death with news like that without checking..!"_

_Kat raised her hands in a defensive gesture and desperately tried to get a word in edgeways. It never went like this in the classes they'd been taught!_

"_Ma'am…Mrs Harrison…ma'am…Your daughter…..Your daughterwashitbyacar!" She blurted out finally, desperate to cut through the woman's tirade. There was a deafening silence and Kat leapt into the breach. "Your daughter was walking back from the store when two cars collided at the intersection of Somerset and Judson. I'm afraid that the cars spun onto the pavement and..hit your daughter."_

_Silence. Kat could feel the sweat running down her back, was aware that her shirt was sticking to her clammily and that she now had Mrs Harrison's full, undivided attention. The woman stared at her and Kat met her gaze and looked, for the first time, fully into the other woman's eyes. She never forgot what she saw. _

_At first she couldn't put a name to the emotion she could see there, that poured out of the other woman's face in such a powerful wave that it nearly knocked Kat over. And then it dawned on her, with sickening clarity. It was hope. Hope that Kat was wrong, that this was all a ghastly mistake, that it wasn't her daughter lying dead on a sidewalk, that Kat hadn't just said what she just said. She watched as the woman began to absorb the words, began to accept them, began to realise the awful, enormous horror of what she was being told. Her little girl was never coming home. And it was her, Kat Miller, who'd killed that hope, no-one else. Mrs Harrison began to crumple, to curl, fall to the floor and as she went down, she tilted her head back and howled in grief._

_It had taken weeks for Kat to stop having nightmares about that moment and even now she sometimes heard echoes of it, although her work on Cold Cases meant she was no longer the bearer of bad news, just new news about a bad event. But now and again, she could hear that howl echo in the back of her head and she'd shiver._

It had been silent in the car for a long time. She finally broke the silence by sighing deeply and muttering "I hate when it's a kid."

Scotty flicked her a glance. "I don't know a single cop who likes it when it's a kid. It must be tough for you, bein' a parent an' all. I don't how you do it."

Kat shrugged a little. "It's the job, you know it's part of the job when you go in." She paused, weighing her words; Scotty silently let her take her time. She gave another heavy sigh "But yeh, it's tougher when you're a parent. All the coulda, woulda, shoulda's the parents go through an' you know, nine times outta ten, it's a case of "there but for the grace of God"."

Scotty nodded soberly. "Yeh, I hear that. When my nephew was about three, he snuck outta the house when my brother wasn't lookin'. First thing Mike knows about it, is a car honkin' its horn like the world's about to end. He tears out there an' there's Emilo, sittin' in the middle of the road, laughin' like it's all game. He said he aged a decade in like, ten seconds an' he had nightmares for week thinkin' what could have happened. An' that was something that worked out all right. What these parents have gone through, are about to go through…" He trailed off, seeing Kat's expression had gone tight. "I'd give a lot to spare 'em that."

"You an' me both," she agreed, still staring off at something only she could see. "Did I tell you, Veronica went missin' once? She was about three an' she was playin' in the yard one minute, gone the next. I tell you, Scotty, my heart stopped an' started at least six times before I found her. She'd come inside an' hidden in a cupboard for reasons that only made sense to a three year old. My Mom told me that bein' a parent means wantin' to hug an' strangle your kid at the same time. That was the first time I knew what she meant."

Scotty tried to lighten the mood. "You gotta have nerves of steel bein' a parent, I reckon it's tougher than bein' a cop. I mean you can only get shot at or attacked by crack head gangbangers as a cop."

"Right, easier than arguin' with your nine year old 'bout why she can't have a $300 iPod."

Just for a moment, the gloom lifted as they shared a smile, but then the sign for the storage facility loomed and they fell quiet again. Scotty pulled in and parked, neither of them hurrying as they got out of the car. Kat paused and stared at the building, suddenly feeling a real reluctance to go inside.

"You all right, Kat?" Scotty's voice brought her back to reality and she shook herself a little, forcing herself to walk towards the facility.

"Yeh, 'm fine."

They made themselves known to the manager, who examined the warrant and led them through the hallways until they were in front of their destination. She made a show of checking the number on the door with the number she had in her notebook, anything to stall for time. "Guess this is it."

"Yeh." Scotty moved forward, deliberately putting himself between Kat and the door, as if he could protect her from what they were about to find. That was Scotty, the knight in shining armour and she was grateful for his protective instincts, even as her cop instincts silently protested she didn't need protecting.

There was a sharp snap as Scotty cut through the padlock with the bolt cutters and there was the room, empty except for a chest. Grimly, Scotty moved forward, moving too quick for Kat to really keep up with him: a fact, she realised, she was actually very grateful for. She heard him yank open the chest and she could tell instantly from his body language that he'd found what they feared. She moved two steps closer, for just long enough to see the frozen, huddled up body of the boy before she pulled sharply away. Somewhere, she knew, were parents waiting and hoping and soon - very soon - she was going to kill that hope.

And somewhere in the back of Kat's skull, Mrs Harrison let out a howl of grief.


End file.
